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As the Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog has discussed many times, norms are changing every day. And where there are people who are behind the times in said norms…you will usually find the criminal justice system ready to take action.

Take, for example, the case of Carla Williams, a 27-year-old Lowell mother will be hereinafter referred to as the “Defendant”. She spent last night as an involuntary guest of the Commonwealth and was arraigned today.

She has been charged with committing an assault and battery on her 10-year-old daughter. Because this took place within a family, it is considered domestic violence and the Department of Children and Families (“DCF”) have been alerted to bring their special brand of “care” to the situation.

According to Lowell Police Captain Kelly Richardson, the police were called to the incident in which the Defendant was accused of dragging her daughter home by her hair, punching her in the face and dragging her up a flight of stairs by the ankle.

The Defendant’s alleged response to the officers who came to the scene? She apparently lectured the officers, demanding that “she has the right to discipline her child.”
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According to The Boston Globe, an investigation focused on alleged gang members in the Boston area engaged in drug dealing and “associated criminal behavior” has resulted in a drug raid and multiple arrests. According to authorities, police were originally looking for about 30 people, and about 19 are in custody thus far. The charges are reported to be largely drug- and/or weapons-related.

The investigation, which targeted the illicit drug trade in Charlestown, Jamaica Plain and Everett, was conducted by the Boston police and resulted in a large-scale operation given the name Operation Tourniquet. Many of the raids were targeting residences in the area.
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Massachusetts extortion is an interesting white collar crime. I find that it is largely misunderstood as well.

Take the tale of Howie Winter, 83 years of age and hereinafter referred to as “Defendant1”. Defendant1 is also reputed with being the former head of the notorious Winter Hill Gang. He was just released on $25,000 bail in Somerville District Court. He is charged with trying to extort money from two people. He is accompanied by James Melvin, 70, of Braintree (hereinafter, “Defendant2”). The two are also charged with attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion.

Both gentlemen have also been ordered to where GPS monitoring bracelets.

Prosecutors say the defendants tried to extort $35,000 apiece from two men, repeatedly threatening them during a series of meetings, phone calls, and voicemails. Part of this threatening was allegedly making repeated references to the North End, invoking the shadowy powers of organized crime.

Apparently, said threatening behavior was not overly successful. It merely drove the alleged victims to the hands of law enforcement.

The defendants’ attorneys describe a bit of a different scenario. They suggest that their clients were acting to aid a lawyer who was himself being extorted by the two men that the government is now portraying as the victims.

One of the attorneys asks the question of whether it is extortion to extort money from extortionists. That seems reminiscent of our present policy of bullying kids who are bullies…and we have statutory sanction for that!

But I digress.

Apparently, the government has collected recordings of the defendants in this case. The government expects those tapes to help the prosecution. The defense attorneys, however, claim that said recordings “may very well prove that there was no criminal intent.”
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Tales of Whitey Bulger hit the news again at the end of this past week. Actually, it came through the indirect route of Catherine Greig (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) and her upcoming sentencing. She is due to be sentenced next week and the prosecution has handed in a memorandum in which they recommend that the Defendant serve ten years in federal prison.

While it involves the Defendant’s case, it is her boyfriend who is of more interest to the media and the populous. The sentencing memo apparently sheds some light on Whitey’s life “on the run” and so everybody is all over it.

In the sentencing memorandum, the government is asking the court to reject the Federal Sentencing Guidelines (which they usually ask the court to follow) and sentence the Defendant to more time than suggested. In order to justify the request, the government discussed “alleged tidbits” of the Defendant’s “life on the run” with Bulger.

Somehow, some of this information slipped into the hands of the media.

“Greig not only concealed Bulger from law enforcement but did, herself, commit multiple additional felonies in order to protect him from capture,” Prosecutors said. “This is no garden variety harboring case. It is the most extreme case of harboring this District has seen.”
The court document describes Bulger as “a high fear, or high anxiety, patient” and revealed that the Defendant committed the sinful acts of helping him get necessary medical and dental treatments.

“The medical and dental records also show that Bulger had a fear of shots – he described himself in one written form as a ‘dental chicken, from Chicago.’ Sometimes, as medical records revealed, the Defendant was actually present during medical procedures to calm him down.” The documents contained the additional bombshell that the Defendant sometimes helped the Bulger control his temper at times.

Hmm. Must be a new Felony Mental Health Management statute or something.
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In the last Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog, we began discussing the verdict and sentencing of Aaron Deveau (hereinafter, the “Defendant”). He is the young gentleman who was just convicted of texting while he was driving and, as a result, smashing into another vehicle and causing eventual death to one person and serious injury to another.

The sentence the judge handed down has been, to some extent, controversial.

The Commonwealth’s sentiments are, ironically enough, made out best by a defense lawyer who said, “The message here is, the commonwealth is not going to tolerate any violations of this law…It’s extremely dangerous to text and drive at the same time, and the jury’s verdict and the judge’s sentencing reflects that.”

Of course, the Commonwealth agrees with the sentiment. Dave Procopio, the spokesman for the state police, says, “This was an important case that made very clear the consequences of distracted driving and the resolve and ability of police and prosecutors to hold accountable people who do it.”

And they are right. Sort of. I would not be surprised if the next step were to elevate vehicular homicide in such cases to that of similar homicides which result because the driver was driving drunk. After all, at least alcoholism is a disease. Texting is not a biological compulsion. It is, even more than drinking, a choice.

I understand all that. And I do sympathize with the victims of this case as well as those like it. The results in such cases are tragedies of immense proportions. However, it does bring up a question I raised in my last blog. Namely, what does one do when the convicted defendant is not really what we would normally consider a “criminal”?

It is an issue which I think we had best think carefully…because it is likely to impact all our lives.
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Yesterday afternoon through this morning, you may have heard my comments regarding the verdict in the Haverhill motor vehicle homicide case on WBZ, radio 1030 on your am dial.

Now that the smoke has cleared in that particular tragedy, people are debating whether or not the verdicts send a message that will be heeded.

It is important to note that the statute at issue, in terms of the prohibition against texting, has differing commandments to the populous, depending on age. If you are under the age of 18, then you may not use your cell phone, or any other like device while you are driving. Period. If you are over 18, you simply cannot text while driving.

Aaron Deveau (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) was 17 years old when he had his car accident which inflicted what turned out to be fatal injuries to one person and nonfatal yet serious injuries to another. Under the statute, he was simply not allowed to use the phone for any reason while driving.

Of course, at trial, he testified and explained that it was not phone use at all but concern over his studies which distracted him enough to cause the accident.

The prosecutors, however used phone records to argue that the Defendant was texting just before the accident.

The jury went with the prosecution’s version.
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Suffolk Superior Court Judge Linda Giles ordered a halt to a murder trial over concerns regarding two witnesses who were involved in a stabbing yesterday afternoon in downtown Boston. Giles noted that she is “extremely reluctant to [postpone] this trial” due to the possibility that granting a delay could “set a precedent that all you have to do to derail a first-degree murder trial… is attack some of the participants,” but is choosing to go forward with the decision due to the condition of the witnesses. “I am basing it on two potential defense witnesses,” she said, in reference to the severity of their wounds.

Giles is presiding over the first-degree murder trial of two Dorchester men accused in the shooting of another woman. According to prosecutors, a second man was injured in the shooting but survived. However, he was reportedly not among the victims of yesterday’s stabbing.
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As I write this, history is being made at the Haverhill District Court.

It is the first trial for vehicular homicide taking place where the negligent acts of the defendant are the use of a cellular phone, to wit: texting. As you may recall, we discussed the new law regarding texting while driving when it was passed not so long ago..

Aaron Deveau, a teenager hereinafter, the “Defendant”, is now 18 years of age. On February 20, 2011, when he was 17, he is Alleged to have received 193 text messages…some of which are said to have come within moments of his crossing into oncoming traffic and smashing head-on into another car, killing the driver and seriously injuring a passenger. Prosecutors add that 4 of these texts came within two minutes of the impact.

55-year-old Donald Bowley of Danville, New Hampshire was on the other side of that impact. 18 days later, Mr. Bowley died of severe brain trauma apparently caused by the accident. In the car with Mr. Bowley was Luz Roman. She is said to have serious injuries, including the breaking of all her ribs, collapsed lungs and fractured pelvis and leg.

Roman testified that all of her ribs were broken, her lungs collapsed, and her pelvis and leg were fractured.

The charges the Defendant faces Include negligent motor vehicle homicide and causing injury in a crash while texting and driving. If convicted, he is said to be facing a sentence of four years in jail.

Attorney Sam’s Take On Vehicular Homicide Prosecutions

Regular readers of the Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog may notice this case is being brought in state district court, not Superior Court. As we have discussed, most prosecutions for serious crimes such as homicide are usually brought in Superior Court. It is Superior Court which has the jurisdiction to send people to state prison for many years…even life without parole.

However, this homicide trial is taking place in District Court where the maximum sentence the court can give on any one crime is two and one half years in the House Of Correction.

You may be wondering if the Commonwealth is simply “giving a break “to the young Defendant.
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A judge has ordered that George Zimmerman, the man charged with killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, return to jail within 48 hours after revoking his bond on the grounds that his wife, Shellie, misled the court. Zimmerman, who is pleading not guilty to the charge of second-degree murder and claiming self-defense, was accused of shooting Martin in February in the gated community of Sanford, Fla., where Zimmerman acted as a neighborhood watch volunteer.

According to the Miami Herald, Zimmerman’s wife testified that the couple had limited funds available and were unable to meet the $150,000 bond that had been set back in April. Prosecutors reportedly discovered that he raised $135,000 from a website he had set up for himself.
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As the trial for Aaron Duveau, 18, continues, Haverhill police officer Wayne Tracey testified today that the crash was “the worst he had ever seen in his law enforcement career.” Tracey was one of the first to respond to the scene on February 20, 2011 after, as authorities allege, Duveau drifted across the center line of a street and into oncoming traffic, colliding with a car driven by a 55-year-old New Hampshire man. The man died several weeks later from severe brain trauma.

Tracey testified that Duveau, who was 17 at the time of the crash, also appeared tired and “a bit sluggish” at the scene. He is now being faced with violating a new state law which criminalizes texting behind the wheel of a car when an individual has been injured during a crash. According to Essex District Attorney Ashlee Logan, Duveau sent and received four text messages in the three-minute period leading up to the collision.
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